Fireteam 241Delta
by koram852
Summary: It is a long story from the beginnings of the Exo to the end of The Tower. But there it stands, truth before the Dark. The background and lives of three Guardians and the turmoil of their relationships, losses, victories, and survival through the ages. (Multiple OC. Cannon characters are supporting.)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : I do not own any of Destiny's canonical characters. They belong to Bungie.

 **I do own Aen, Cal, Southpaw-41 aka "Lefty," Asha-1, Caia, Anne, Marius, Brimm, and Dar. Please do not use them without my explicit permission. Emer, Gashad aka "Sha," Cai, belong to Sparticus328. Please do not them without their explicit permission. Thank you.**  
 _  
AN: please forgive me as i try to figure out the formatting with this one. if you spot any typos i've missed in my re-read, please feel free to either pm me, or leave a note in your review. Thank you for your patience. and i hope y'all enjoy this little foray that's exploded into a huge undertaking - just like everything else i do. XD  
(also, i use archaic forms like lieing, layed, and amoung, so those aren't actually typos, they're intentional.)_

~.oOo.~

 **Asha-1, Exo, Female**

I don't remember the great Vex battle, but I remember I was there. It's a sensation. The knowledge is raw and blunt, but the events are gone, washed away in our Calamity. Such a sad thing, to forget half your life.

So I'm making a new life. A quiet one. I do my job, I get my kills, I keep in shape, I read my books. And I walk... a lot. I like walking; it makes me feel like I can remember. Or like I don't have to.

I do remember my first dream I had after The Seeding. I was one of the first... I was walking through a field of tall, golden and blue grass, and above me, there was a great tree in the sky, green and silver and white. I walked towards it and it spoke to me — all around me. "Forever. Never. Always. End." I kept waking toward this tree, ever getting closer, ever it growing larger above me, but I never reached it.

Perhaps that is why I enjoy walking. Because of the field.

I remember revival too. Waking up in a pitch wood, surrounded by snow, and this tiny, hovering light to my right. Her voice was soft and meek and weary. She'd been searching so long. Weeks later, we found a group heading toward The Traveler where it was said a city was forming and a wall was being built. I still miss the snow and the quiet...

~.oOo.~


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer** : I do not own any of Destiny's canonical characters. They belong to Bungie.

 **I do own Aen, Cal, Southpaw-41 aka "Lefty," Asha-1, Caia, Anne, Marius, Brimm, and Dar. Please do not use them without my explicit permission. Emer, Gashad aka "Sha," and Cai, belong to Sparticus328. Please do not them without their explicit permission. Thank you.**

 _AN: please forgive me as i try to figure out the formatting with this one. if you spot any typos i've missed in my re-read, please feel free to either pm me, or leave a note in your review. Thank you for your patience. and i hope y'all enjoy this little foray that's exploded into a huge undertaking - just like everything else i do. XD_  
 _(also, i use archaic forms like lieing, layed, and amoung, so those aren't actually typos, they're intentional.)_

~.oOo.~

 _AN: this is asha. she could be wrong._

~.oOo.~

 **Asha-1, Exo, Female**

I don't know much, but I do know this: I was never human. I never had a family. I never dated. I never graduated Uni. I have always been this. I was a tool, now I am more.

The Crypt is our Purpose. It's not complicated; we were made to fight. In the dream, we fight. We fight our way Home— to the moon where we were born. It is our Purpose, thus * _it_ seeded our sentience.

Personally, I believe The Traveler did that. It made the Ghosts, why not us? Show me a Guardian who thinks their Ghost isn't sentient and I'll show you a damn liar.

But I was never human.

Those of us who were, — yes, * _us_ — remember it. Cayde remembers, knows, how he came to choose his plasteel body. Cal tells me stories of Southpaw's memories from before. He wrote * _everything_ down, every detail. He was a black kid from Chicago, one of the rough neighborhoods. He remembered shootings in the streets, before The Traveler... making signs to keep the gangs away from kids' homes... trying to heal his community. He took the body after he was paralyzed by a car accident. He remembered the chaos of the Collapse, the fear. He remembered dieing.

I only remember the Crypt and the Vex.

There is no flesh attached to my memory.

Then again, my experience is rare. The only other one-boot I know is a bartender. And she's like me; no flesh.

I wish Banshee could tell me which he is. I have a theory that transferred human consciousness is more vulnerable to errors than raw constructs. I think the emotions are bigger, more overwhelming. It makes me sad... They're the ones with pasts worth remembering — those families and dates and graduations.

I wonder * _how_ Southpaw held on so well when Banshee's such a mess... I think the writing helped. I think his music helped.

I think he delved into the Crypt and didn't kill.

I think Southpaw-41 found Enlightenment.

~.oOo.~

I remember almost everything — at least everything after my Resurrection. Things from before the Collapse are... fuzzy or gone. Whatever The Darkness or The Traveler did, it scrambled our heads. And like I said, I only remember my first dream clearly. Snippets of fighting the Vex. Snippets.

The Crypt is clear — because it's programmed in.

~.oOo.~

It took us weeks to find the settlement.

Even with the help of my Ghost, I needed to find transportation. And before I could do that, I needed to walk out of the wood.

I found an old scout rifle in a bunker on day three.

Three weeks and two days later, I found a group outside one of the old shipyards. They were preparing to cross the Atlantic in a small, suborbital freighter that was still flightworthy. Between those two dates, I picked off around three dozen squads of Fallen. A mere drop in the bucket. They were everywhere.

I still have that scout.

~.oOo.~

The settlement was smaller than I was expecting when we arrived. Still a vast sprawl of tents, but not the hundreds of thousands I'd been imagining.

The cornerstones for the first Towers were being layed. The first structures of The City were being pieced together.

I picked up a scout squad immediately, and under the great overhead expanse of The Traveler, we fully came into our new powers. We wrote The Hunters' codices. We began training new Guardians — as our Ghosts called us — as they arrived.

Those were hard but good days, watching The Towers rise up. Protecting the tents and civilians.

When all was done, I was stationed in Tower 4-East.

 _/Below is a detailed drawing of quarters that no longer exist/_

~.oOo.~

 _AN: this took a helluva lot of reading and research - an it's still all foggy af. basically, i'm coming from thinking many exos were machines first and others were human, like cayde and lefty._

 _i will hopefully be posting a dated timeline sometime in the near future. i am sticking with the Traveler arriving in 2014 as this is consistent across all existing timelines. lefty would've been about 17-20 during the high violence in Chicago a few years ago - late highschool/college age. he was either altered by the Traveler or received anti-aging vaccines between age 30-45._

 _interestingly, asha is growing and changing more than i expected as i write her. it'll be interesting to see what she ends up as._


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer** : I do not own any of Destiny's canonical characters. They belong to Bungie.

 **I do own Aen, Cal, Southpaw-41 aka "Lefty," Asha-1, Caia, Anne, Marius, Brimm, and Dar. Please do not use them without my explicit permission. Emer, Gashad aka "Sha," and Cai, belong to Sparticus328. Please do not use them without their explicit permission. Thank you.**

 _AN: please forgive me as i try to figure out the formatting with this one. if you spot any typos i've missed in my re-read, please feel free to either pm me, or leave a note in your review. Thank you for your patience. and i hope y'all enjoy this little foray that's exploded into a huge undertaking - just like everything else i do. XD_  
 _(also, i use archaic forms like lieing, layed, and amoung, so those aren't actually typos, they're intentional.)_

~.oOo.~

 **Cal Yvonne, Human, Male**

Aen knows that sex is a performance; I think that's why I like him.

We met on a routine raid out by the Shipyards. He and Emer were raging on the Captain Boomer Knight when I dropped in with a shield to help them out. Aen was good with his fists, a real Striker. And he had fun too. Saying something for someone went through the Reef Wars.

Emer's more serious. I respect her ethic. And she's precise.

After the Boomer was down and we'd collected what they needed off it, we got to talking - out there on the plain, surrounded by derelict ships. I told them I'd been revived about fifty-six some odd years prior, in the mountains North of The City. Being Awoken, they don't actually know what that's like. It's different for them.

I'd heard rumors about Aen's relationship with Saladin. Honestly, I didn't believe it. I'd known Sal for years, trained under him, and I'd never seen any incline toward men. Just shows you never know. When I asked Aen if the rumors were at all true, he was honest, said yeah, but he wouldn't go into detail for Sal's sake. Instead, we talked about old flings, guys vs girls, and guns.

Aen knows sex is a performance. I liked that. We hit it off immediately.

~.oOo.~

 _AN: i need to reassess some lore and timeline issues in the next chapter before i can post it. safe bet that a timeline type-up will be next post, prob as a one-shot...  
_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer** : I do not own any of Destiny's canonical characters. They belong to Bungie.

 **I do own Aen, Cal, Southpaw-41 aka "Lefty," Asha-1, Caia, Anne, Marius, Brimm, and Dar. Please do not use them without my explicit permission. Emer, Gashad aka "Sha," and Cai, belong to Sparticus328. Please do not use them without their explicit permission. Thank you.**

 _AN: please forgive me as i try to figure out the formatting with this one. if you spot any typos i've missed in my re-read, please feel free to either pm me, or leave a note in your review. Thank you for your patience. and i hope y'all enjoy this little foray that's exploded into a huge undertaking - just like everything else i do. XD_  
 _(also, i use archaic forms like lieing, layed, and amoung, so those aren't actually typos, they're intentional.)_

~.oOo.~

 **Cal Yvonne, Human, Male**

I grew up in The City.

I was born in the Eastern Ward, into a family with military honors and clout with The Towers. I was raised with the Militia. Raised with drills and firing practice and personal discipline. And I loved it. As a child, it made me feel important to be grouped in with the rest of the Guard.

And that's where I ended up. I secured myself a position with the Watch straight out of University — My father refused to do more than confirm my strong work ethic and moral fiber. I had to get there myself. And that's what I wanted. That's what I did.

I worked my way up through the ranks, one year at a time, Watch to Gate, Gate to Scout, Scout to Escort Detail, Detail to High Guard. Had I been chosen by the Light, I'd have been made a Guardian early on. Since I did not have * _that_ blessing, they gave me a Militia command.

The High Guard — my family's legacy — is the Elite Militia force which stands with the Guardians to defend The City. We scout, we run light strikes on supply routes, usually against the Fallen. We patrol the edges of the frontier around The Wall, holding back the Fallen as the Vanguard send Guardians deep into enemy territory to cripple their inner workings and command structure.

I lived to defend The City, my people, for one hundred sixty-two years.

I died in what used to be Trenčín, Slovakia.

My family had me buried far north in the mountains. It's traditional.

~.oOo.~

Two hundred years later, I stumbled out of those mountains to find an entirely different city. The pristine walls were marred by the constant attacks of the Fallen. Only one of The Towers remained. The Wards had all grown up and weathered.

My family was gone. My youngest sister seventy-two years dead.

Zavala remembered my face though. I was thankful for that. But he was the only one. I hadn't the occasion to meet Shaxx, or more than pass Saladin on the steps. But Zavala is a peoples' Guardian. He embraced me... And stayed as I broke down with the news of my brother's and sisters' passing. He gripped my shoulder as I choked — As I lost everything. And gained the Light.

~.oOo.~

No one was surprised a Yvonne would be a Defender.

It's always fascinated me how different personalities gravitate toward different classes though. It's really chosen by your strategy, by your goals: Titans protect, either offensively or defensively, but we protect. Hunters— well, they hunt. And Warlocks focus, learn, listen, over power.

I don't really understand Warlocks.

Zavala trained me in the Ward, and after a few months, I finally started to feel like I was at home again. The Light was hard to get used to, despite it being second nature as soon as we're resurrected. The new culture of The City — more mixed and blended than ever; I felt so... outside. And being immortal is strange. I * _felt_ different. My body felt different. If I think back carefully enough, I can still remember how weird the Light felt. Like a puppy still learning to run. Or a torture victim sent out of the dungeon into the full blaze of the sun.

My body didn't feel like my own for a long time.

It was the Ward that helped. It made the hum go silent. Thank heavens for the Void.

And thank heavens I met Lefty.

~.oOo.~

 _Historian's note:_  
 _The years were calculated using the date model shown on destinypedia's Timeline page, with the Traveler arriving in Sol system in 2014, the Collapse taking place in 2400 (via Destiny Timeline Project, archived at 1337wiki destiny-timeline-project), and game events beginning in 3214._

 _Cal was born in 2796, shortly before the Six Coyotes ventured beyond the Cosmodrome._  
 _He died in 2958 at 162 years of age (54x3=162 - calculated for tripled lifespan). His youngest sister is six years younger than him, putting her at 156 years when he died._  
 _Cal was dead for exactly 200 years and was Resurrected in 3158._  
 _His sister, being dead for 72 years at the time of Cal's Resurrection, died of natural causes in 3086 at age 284._  
 _And as stated in the prev chapter, Cal was 56 years post-resurrection when he met Aen and Emer._


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer** : I do not own any of Destiny's canonical characters. They belong to Bungie.

 **I do own Aen, Cal, Southpaw-41 aka "Lefty," Asha-1, Caia, Anne, Marius, Brimm, and Dar. Please do not use them without my explicit permission. Emer, Gashad aka "Sha," and Cai, belong to Sparticus328. Please do not use them without their explicit permission. Thank you.**

 _AN: please forgive me as i try to figure out the formatting with this one. if you spot any typos i've missed in my re-read, please feel free to either pm me, or leave a note in your review. Thank you for your patience. and i hope y'all enjoy this little foray that's exploded into a huge undertaking - just like everything else i do. XD_  
 _(also, i use archaic forms like lieing, layed, and amoung, so those aren't actually typos, they're intentional.)_

~.oOo.~

 **Late Fall, 3217**

Cal palmed open the door and Aen and Caia followed him inside— and froze, stunned.

Two walls were lined with armour sets, all well maintained. Two sets - a Arihane and a Knight, were fully displayed on forms at the ends of each shelf set, bookending the vast window. They even bore Titan marks. Others - at least nine full sets that Aen could count, plus a few odd-ball stand alones, were lovingly displayed on the two, large, floor-to-ceiling shelving units.

"Wahow..." Caia breathed. "Where'd you get all these?" Aen followed her across the room to look at an Illyrian set in yellows and steels.

"Oh... I... had a friend who collected armour... He left everything to me when he Passed."

Aen and Caia turned to look at Cal in the same moment— two concerned, light blue, face.

"I'm sorry. I—" but Cal held up a hand to stop Caia's words.

"It was a very long time ago now."

"They Fell?" Aen asked quietly. The fact that they all lived with the truth of violent death every single day, didn't make it any easier to encounter or accept.

Cal nodded, somber. "The Fallen. Six years ago now." He chuckled a moment later, "There was more than this. Man kept everything. Piles of notices over resource violations and space limits in the vault system. I paired it down to his favorites, most worn, and sold some."

~.oOo.~

 **Six Years Earlier**

Cal punched in the code and Lefty's vault scrolled through.

"Holy shit," Ren uttered from beside him, "Where'd he get all this?!"

Bar after bar of armour sets scrolled on, mostly armour but then a page or two of weapons as well.

"He's been collecting for years... But I didn't realize he'd picked up * _so_ * _much_."

Cal's throat felt tight. Lefty had given all this to him - all his most guarded possessions. Every cherished and well utilized piece of armour. Every Baby of a weapon. This was Southpaw-41's * _life_ , here in this storage unit. All of it. —And now it all belonged to Cal.

"Cal... you okay?" Ren's voice whispered next to him.

He shook his head, but couldn't speak. His throat was full of heavy stones and it hurt to swallow.

For now, he withdrew Lefty's three most used and upgraded sets into his link. He would keep them close and clean — as a testament to his friend.

...He still had the journal to read...

~.oOo.~

Caia wandered the shelves as Aen inspected every dent of the Knight set closely. Cal was by the bed, stripping off his own armour and changing into clean civvies.

"There are no shaders. These are all stock." Caia wondered at it.

Cal glanced over as he pulled on a light blue tunic. "Lefty never liked shaders. He prefered a full match-set... Even if that meant lower stats."

Aen looked over at Cal, understanding well his meaning. It was why many Guardians * _found_ shaders to begin with — to gain higher protection without the eyesore of looking like a miss-matched junkyard of found articles. Cal was lost in a memory, gazing at the wall next to his bed as he fastened a belt through his trousers, and tucked in the front of his tunic.

Then, Cal heaved a deep breath and let it out slow. "Well..." he turned to them, "dinner at the tavern? I'm buying."

"Oh, yeah!" Caia cheered and hustled over to the older Titan.

Aen followed, but he was in Second mind now, worried for Cal. This Lefty must've been a dear friend indeed. The shrine was telling, but Cal's lost expression was deeper. Aen knew it. He'd seen it in Emer.

~.oOo.~

After dinner, they moved out onto the dimly lit Plaza...

"Cal, can I ask you something?" Aen inquired carefully, keeping his voice low.

"Sure." Kind hazel-brown eyes.

"Were you and Lefty...? Are you bisexual?"

Cal burst into laughter. "Ah-hahaha—! No." He chuckled and calmed. "Just very close friends and teammates. We came up together, scouted together, raided together." He nodded. "It took me a long time to open back up after his death."

"You say death, not fall..."

"He didn't fall. He died." Cal's voice was hard, an Old, ancient edge to it. Regal truth.

Before Aen could respond, Cal was walking away from him, back to Rank housing. The conversation was over.

~.oOo.~

 _AN: it's taken me this long to decide whether to do Caia's dossier next or go right into Cal's relationship with Lefty. I chose the later, as Caia doesn't come into Cal's life until much later in the chronology. obviously, this chapter comes out of order with a flashback in the middle. more to come more quickly now that i think i know what order i wanna do things in..._


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer** : I do not own any of Destiny's canonical characters. They belong to Bungie.

 **I do own Aen, Cal, Southpaw-41 aka "Lefty," Asha-1, Caia, Anne, Marius, Brimm, and Dar. Please do not use them without my explicit permission. Emer, Gashad aka "Sha," and Cai, belong to Sparticus328. Please do not use them without their explicit permission. Thank you.**

 _AN: please forgive me as i try to figure out the formatting with this one. if you spot any typos i've missed in my re-read, please feel free to either pm me, or leave a note in your review. Thank you for your patience. and i hope y'all enjoy this little foray that's exploded into a huge undertaking - just like everything else i do. XD_  
 _(also, i use archaic forms like lieing, layed, and amoung, so those aren't actually typos, they're intentional.)_

~.oOo.~

 **Spring, 3206**

A loud bang announced Lefty's arrival as he crashed the butt of a red and grey auto rifle on the table between them. Cal blinked up in mild surprise at the noise.

"I call her my Red Devil." Lefty stated proudly, "Grim Citizen III. Grave Robber, Speed Reload —" he paused for effect, "And I * _just_ installed a Third Eye upgrade."

Cal smiled at his friend's love of the well used weapon as he sat on the he opposite bench. "Nice. Does this mean I can have your Red Specter then?"

"No." Lefty waved over the bartender and ordered his usual. "Besides, you've got Precilla." Somehow the Exo's mechanoid face smirked, "Wouldn't want her to get lonely."

"Lonely?" Cal scoffed and took a sip of his scotch, "She's not lonely, she's * _tired_." He chuckled and Lefty echoed it.

"Why don't you just save up for a Third Eye for Precilla?"

"Wrong fittings," Cal grunted. He'd been over this with Banshee several times — and not even the gunsmith could make the upgrade fit. Previous mods had just compromised the sight too much. He nodded at Lefty's mis-match of Crucible and Vanguard armours, "When are * _you_ gonna give in and get a shader to clean up that mess?"

Lefty looked down at his green and yellow Garuda chest clashing with teal-blue orange Raku Gwener gauntlets. "Meh," he shrugged, "You wanted me to cover my ass for the Strike, I did." He thanked the bartender as he received his drink and went on, "Besides, you know I think they're cheating. ...A real warrior doesn't need to bother with looking pretty; his skill speaks for itself."

Cal frowned, "Says the man who won't use better armour sans nagging, 'because it doesn't match well enough.'" He held a beat and let the worry seep into his voice, "You're gonna get yourself killed..."

Lefty said nothing, just downed his drink and ignored the human Defender. Cal didn't like it, but he got it: enough. I've heard it.

~.oOo.~

 **Late Summer, 3209**

Anne found Cal in his quarters, surrounded by Lefty's armours and weapons. She let the door close behind her and said nothing. He was on the sofa, holding a Grim Citizen III like it was something precious.

"I guess his Red Devil became my Precilla after all."

His voice was hollow and lacking all irony.

Anne crossed the room and sat down beside him. A long moment of silence with the gun— "You should build shelves to display all this on." She lifted a dented piece of a Visigoth set up and eyed the rather unhelpful upgrade token marked inside its edge, "The good pieces at least." She looked around at the overabundance of similar pieces, "He really did keep everything, didn't he?"

"He never knew when to just junk it for parts..." Cal's voice was still the same, empty, quiet.

Law and Yvonne just sat there, staring at the gun, the armours, the memories... until long after the sun went down and the room was dark.

"Hell'uva way to, Switch."

Neither of them laughed.

~.oOo.~

 _AN: take note, the time frame is designated by which armour set lefty is wearing over the next few chapters, and they take place in reverse chronological order._  
 _chapters following ch8 should be in forward chronological order? (this is where the bearing with me figuring out the format comes in)_


End file.
